


let's make the best (of the rest of our years)

by devereauxing



Series: a chance you have to take with love [2]
Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Aging, Insecurity, M/M, Weight Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 02:40:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20499509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devereauxing/pseuds/devereauxing
Summary: roger, melodramatic sod that he was, had had a crisis of confidence over aging a few months back all over a pretty young interviewer asking him is he was thinking about settling down and having a family any time soon now that he was heading towards his mid 30s.(prequel to it's a long hard fight (but i'll always live for tomorrow))





	let's make the best (of the rest of our years)

John wasn’t all that fond of the press tour that accompanied the release, or build up to the release, of an album. Wasn’t all that fond of tours in general, if he was being honest. Roger thought he was mad for it, couldn’t understand it at all. Roger enjoyed all of it. He lived for the feeling of eyes on him, and his blood thrummed with the labour of creation that they suffered, savoured, survived in the confines of the studio.

He didn’t mind so much recording, but he could do without the grind of performing. Months on end of nothing but performance after performance. Playing the bass, singing backing vocal, pretending at a bachelorhood that he hadn’t touched in _years _ever since Roger had crowded him up against the staircase of Brian’s home, Chrissie’s baby shower one room over, and told him to _stop being so fucking stupid, John_.

Performing got tiring when it didn’t end, and in his mopiest moments John thought he’d not stopped performing in nearly seven years.

“There’s a lot of buzz around this album,” the reporter (Rachel? Rochelle?) said, leaning forward eagerly. After the disaster that was a few of the Hot Space press events — flashing bulbs that had them all on the edge before the questions had even started, and fresh faced reporters that hadn’t even been out of _school _when they had first begun their career as Queen egging each other on with questions that veered between wildly invasive and just straight up offensive — Miami hadn’t even given them a choice, merely told them that they’d be doing one on one’s.

Or four on one’s, he supposed. Though when facing the press they were always more like one being than four separate men.

“Well, darling,” Freddie answered, pausing to take a drag of the cigarette he’d plucked from John’s unwilling fingers only moments ago. A chiding look had slid its way onto his face as he’d done so, effectively chastising him for his attempt to hide behind a plume of smoke and silence. “The hacks thought we were dead in the water, didn’t they? But here we are again, still rumbling on as always.”

“Hacks?” Rochelle — she looked like a Rochelle, with her turned up nose and small smile that looked entirely fake as her gaze darted between them all — asked as Roger smirked and stole the cigarette from Freddie in turn, leaning behind Brian to return it to John.

“Journalists, vultures, so-called purveyors of news and truth,” Freddie reeled off, snatching the pack of smokes from the table where they lay next to Rochelle’s tape recorder. He pulled one out and waved at Brian to move out of his way so that Roger, who could at all times be relied upon to have at least three lighters stashed somewhere about his person, could light it for him.

Brian huffed, raising his arms to give them space.

“I’ll try not to take that personally,” Rochelle tittered uncertainly, glancing nervously at the clock that hung behind them like an executioner's sword as she leaned back into her chair. John looked back also.

Fifteen minutes to go.

“If you wish,” Freddie said dismissively, settling back into his spot on the sofa.

An uncomfortable silence settled over the room.

Roger, stuck on the other end of the sofa from him, slung an arm across the back so that his dangling fingers just about brushed against John’s shoulder. He slouched downwards, legs splaying open in a conscious display of nonchalance even as he betrayed himself by sticking his other hand under his collar.

“We’ve never been much popular with the music press,” he explained genially, carefree grin plastered across his face as Brian attempted to shuffle over to give himself more room. The last time he’d tried to get Roger to simply take up less space the sprawl had quickly turned into a brawl. “It is what it is, ya know? But I guess it’s pretty easy to grow jaded in return.”

The eagerness returned to Rochelle’s posture at the prospect of an interviewee that wasn’t entirely hostile to the idea of being, well, interviewed. “We hate you, you hate us?” she asked, eyebrows raised.

“You hate us?” Roger parroted, mock offense colouring his tone.

“What Roger’s trying to say,” Brian interrupted before Rochelle had the chance to respond, bringing a hand up to play with his hair like he did whenever he was attempting to look particularly deep in thought. “Is that over the years we’ve become somewhat accustomed? Yes, _accustomed _to negative press and have sort of learned not to pay attention to the more… journalistic, I guess, conversations occurring around our body of work—”

John rolled his eyes so hard his entire head moved with them. Freddie gave a small huff of a sigh as Brian continued, patting John on the knee. Roger seemed utterly unbothered about being cut off and reinterpreted, tapping his fingers against John’s shoulder at an uneven beat designed to rile him up.

He began to tap his foot, balancing the rhythm even as he tried to ignore Roger’s antics.

Freddie gave him a sly glance.

Brian trailed off with a lame: “Do you understand what I mean?”

“Sure,” Rochelle replied with a bright smile that gave her away as a bold faced liar. “Of course.”

“Oh, good,” Brian continued, oblivious. “The relationship between musicians and the press is—”

“She _is_ the press,” John interjected lowly, tapping his foot slightly harder. Roger’s fingers stopped their own beat; a small caress. The tension dissipated from his shoulders almost immediately, and he took a drag.

Freddie smothered a smile behind his hand as Brian began a litany of apologies.

“I hope you didn’t think I was being condescending, no, not at all,” Brian assured hurriedly, accidentally knocking Roger’s knee as he leaned forwards. Roger retracted his arm to flick half-heartedly at Brian’s head. “Of course you understand how band’s — fuck off, Rog — can take on this sort of, I don’t know… defensiveness, and—”

“Oh God,” Freddie interrupted him, exhaling through his nose. “Please, ask another question before we’re forced to listen to more of Brian’s apologies.”

Rochelle blinked at him.

“He _will _keep going,” Freddie insisted, holding up a hand when Brian went to argue. “And you only have seven minutes left, darling.”

“Right,” nodded Rochelle, collecting herself. “Now, I know that Brian is, of course, happily married. Any plans on leaving bachelorhood behind for the rest of you handsome gents?”

John, very deliberately, kept his gaze ahead.

“Why ever would I do a dreadful thing like that?” said Freddie.

Brian made a feeble protest as to the joys of matrimony that went generally ignored.

“No,” stated John.

Roger took a drag.

“Roger?” Rochelle persisted, the clock ticking away over their heads. So far she hadn’t gotten much of a sound bite, not unless you included ‘Queen Don’t Like Journalists’ which had rather stopped being news about a decade ago. “Not feeling the pull towards settling down as you enter your mid-thirties? Children, maybe?”

John peeked over at Roger just in time to see something that looked like a quiet sort of yearning sweep over him; the vestiges of a dream you clung to as consciousness swept over you and the doldrums of reality set in to the beat of your heart, inescapable and heartbreakingly necessary. A blink, and that same mockery of offence had set in again.

“Settling down?” he croaked, grimacing as he did so. He cleared his throat, tried again: “_Settling down_?”

“Well—”

“Roger’s really good with children,” Brian interjected, a teasing smirk lingering around the corners of his mouth. “My kids love him.”

It was true. They did.

And Roger loved them.

They all did, obviously. Jimmy had been celebrated by them all as if he was their own, and Louisa too. Every birthday was like a Queen reunion, old roadies that had toured with them back in ‘72 popping up out of the woodwork as if they’d never been gone. They’d almost been kicked out of Chessington Zoo for Louisa’s 2nd after Ratty had been encouraged to attempt to ride a camel without the appropriate supervision.

John adored them, would never stop being amazed at how they grew from blobs of chubby, flailing limbs into actual, tiny people. But it hurt to see them too.

It hurt in that way that he tried very hard not to pay attention to. It sat in the very periphery of his life, hanging over his shoulder and begging him to slip up and look up at it. A lingering ache that grew deeper as fat fists held onto his pinky finger and babbled stories that made no sense whatsoever. A lingering ache that had him ducking to the bathroom during get together’s at Brian and Chrissie’s because he’d always wanted a big family, had always wanted a household noisy enough that he could be quiet; he’d always wanted that and Roger was _good _with the children, would be so good with thei—

“Roger _is _a kid,” Freddie snorted, reaching over to prod playfully at Roger’s cheek. Roger snapped his teeth at him.

“In mind,” Brian said with a wink aimed at Rochelle — who paid him little to no mind whatsoever. “If not body…”

Freddie guffawed, his cigarette now completely forgotten as it burned steadily to ash in his grip.

“Fuck you!” Roger laughed, purposefully exhaling his own smoke into Brian’s face. Brian coughed obnoxiously, waving his hands about to dispel the haze. “You’re both older than me!”

“Brian has settled down,” Rochelle said steadily, angled towards Roger completely. “And Freddie is…” she trailed off, unsurely.

“Uninterested,” presented Freddie.

“Uninterested!” Rochelle exclaimed, enthusiastically claiming the out he had given her. “And with yourself now middle aged—”

Roger choked on his next drag. He shoved his shades roughly atop his head, “_Middle aged?_”

John attempted to hide his own laughter as Roger shot him a look of utter betrayal.

Middle aged was, he had to admit, pushing it. Roger was thirty four. John wasn’t entirely sure why Freddie was laughing so uproariously, being on the other side of thirty five as he was.

But then he could remember once thinking that thirty would have him hobbled over; as you got older the markers shifted — he was self aware enough to admit that middle age would most likely not come for him until he was well into his seventies. Then he might deign to admit his youth was no longer wholly his own.

Middle age wouldn’t come for Roger until he was ten years in his grave at best.

Rochelle was ushered out by Crystal two minutes later, the interview successfully derailed completely by her unintentional insult.

“Middle aged!” Roger exclaimed, shoving Brian and Freddie’s legs out of the way as he came to perch on the arm next to John. “Me! Middle aged!”

He plopped his feet on John’s lap, and John let his head fall forward onto his thigh to smother his laughter. Roger’s indignation was always a joy to watch, but never more than when it came in defence of his vanity.

“Better start thinking about kids while you can still get it up, old man,” Brian snorted, shaking his head.

Perched above him, Roger stiffened.

“Don’t worry, Brian,” John interjected hurriedly before Roger had the chance to say whatever, likely unpleasant, jab the frown on his face threatened. “He’s got a few years left yet, but seeing as you’re so concerned I’ll keep you updated on the situation.”

“Oh, you don’t need to go out of your way.”

“No, no,” John assured him. “I will.”

An immediate and deep set regret took root in Brian’s eyes as he nodded mournfully, not even attempting to further dissuade him.

“I think that went pretty well,” Brian said, abandoning the topic of Roger’s penis for the time being. John took mental note to bring it up again early tomorrow morning.

Freddie made a vaguely affirmative noise in the back of his throat.

“It went shit,” Roger grunted, wriggling his feet around in John’s lap completely uncaring of the dirt he was smearing on his white trousers. Bastard. He was the one who’d insisted he wear the bloody things.

“Just because she thought you were getting on in years,” Brian teased, apparently resigned to his fate as a receptacle of dick-based knowledge if the steely glint in his eyes was any indicator. He shot John a challenging look which John deigned a single eyebrow raise in response to. “Doesn’t mean the whole interview was a wash, Rog. I thought she was quite—”

“Oh, spare us,” Freddie groaned, patting him on the knee patronisingly. “She wasn’t interested in you in the _slightest_, darling.”

“I didn’t _say_—”

“You’re not subtle.”

“You’re not,” John concurred when Brian looked about ready to launch on the defense. John tried very hard not to pass judgement on whatever the hell it was that Brian and Freddie got up to in, and out, of their relationships. The only person he had room to judge on that front was Roger, for obvious reasons. Many a band had fallen apart over moral disagreements such as the value of a matrimonial vow.

John didn’t think he had all that much room to judge as it was. He and Roger didn’t face anywhere near the amount of temptation that Brian and Freddie did, he knew. Of course temptation existed; temptation lingered on the outskirts of any monogamous relationship, let alone one that had built its home in the storm of wealth and fame that called itself Queen. But it was easier to turn down temptation when your partner stood on the other side of the room; when they lay in your shared hotel bed, having retired early after a particularly gruelling show; when the distance between you was never so long as keep you from one another for months on the road where temptation became a daily grind in and of itself, the tethers that kept you grounded waived by money, influence, and the feeling of godliness that flowed through your veins as thousands of voices sang your words back at you.

“We didn’t give her anything,” Roger continued, ignoring them. “She’s gonna have to make shit up if she wants a headline out of that one. Gotta let ‘em think they’ve outsmarted us and got something newsworthy outta us.”

“Thank you so much, Roger,” Brian said dryly, turning up his nose. “It’s not like we’ve been doing this press shit for years or anything.”

“And yet you still fuck it up on the regular.”

“_I _fuck it up?”

“Glad you agree.”

“It wasn’t me who got their knickers in a twist over my age, was it?”

“Oh, I’ll put your knickers in a twist, mate.”

Freddie sighed and flicked Brian’s cheek as he went to retort. “Children,” he huffed. “Behave. Deaky,” he added, sending him a small glare. “Put your boy on a leash.”

Roger flipped him off.

“This is more fun,” John shrugged.

“Well,” Freddie began, abandoning hope of John intervening to keep Roger and Brian from coming to verbal blows. Again. Yesterday’s interviews had been a shitstorm from the get go after Roger had insulted Brian’s tie at breakfast, followed quickly by Brian threatening to upend the jug of orange juice over his head if he didn’t keep his opinions to himself seeing as how he was blind as a bat. “You can’t blame the poor pet for her… confusion about your age, dearest. You do look positively dreadful today,” he continued, looking suspiciously earnest.

Especially given that Roger, in John’s completely unbiased opinion, looked fucking fantastic.

“I look better than you,” Roger shot at him, carding fingers through the hair at John’s nape. “What’d you come dressed as? A fuckin’ plumber?”

“Come now,” Freddie continued, ignoring the jab entirely. He darted across and tugged at Roger shirt, exposing just enough of Roger’s chest to show the multiple marks John had laved there the night before. “You’re covered in bruises! Did you have a fall, you old man, you?”

Roger let out a loud laugh, head thrown back, and made no move to cover himself as Freddie let his shirt go.

“Jealousy isn’t a good look on you,” John told Freddie through a smug smirk that he couldn’t quite fight back. Freddie gasped, falling backwards against Brian as if he had been shot.

“You can keep him,” Freddie assured him, wrinkling his nose at Roger when he blew him an exaggerated kiss.

“Never said it was him you’re jealous of,” John murmured, letting his hand fall to curl around one of Roger’s ankles.

Freddie let out a low whistle, “Oh, Deaky! Don’t tease me so!”

“You’re going to wake up with him in your bed tonight,” Brian informed them, shoving at Freddie to get off of him. “And it’ll be all your own fault.”

“Oh, I have faith he’ll find someone else’s bed to crawl into,” John snickered, tapping out the same beat from before against Roger’s ankle. Roger, of course, picked it up immediately against his pulse point.

Freddie sniffed, “Well, I’m not sleeping with _that _monster, to be sure.” He pointed at Roger, who raised a hand to his chest as if to say _who, me?_ “I don’t know how you live with him, Deaky. I know he kicks like anything, and God knows sometimes I could hear him talking through the walls when we lived together.”

“We didn’t _have _walls,” Roger argued.

“He has his upside’s,” John shrugged. “Also, Roger’s right. You didn’t have walls.”

“You didn’t,” Brian agreed.

“My mistake,” Freddie said, nodding slowly. “I was thinking about the other month in that fucking hotel up in Liverpool.”

John hesitated.

“Oh, I wasn’t sleeping,” Roger grinned lavisciously, hand traveling up into John’s hair once more. “Right, _babe_?”

Brian groaned and made to stand, “Nope, no. I’m not sticking around if you’re throwing pet names around.”

Roger blinked at him innocently, “Why?”

(“Babe, can you grab me the tomato juice behind you?” Roger asked, in the middle of making something he promised was going to be a Bloody Mary but was shaping up to be a bit more Anything I Can Find.

John turned. There was nothing that looked remotely like tomato juice behind him.

“That’s not,” Brian slurred, hanging half over their kitchen bench. Chrissie had abandoned the dinner party turned _party _three hours ago, pressing kisses to their cheeks as she’d dashed to relieve the babysitter. “That’s not how you make a Bloody Mary, Rog.”

He grabbed the apple juice and plopped it down on the counter in front of Roger. He sidled closer to stick a hand in his back pocket, humming under his breath as Roger turned inwards to him just the slightest amount.

“‘S apple juice,” Roger said, squinting at the bottle John had handed him. “Baby, that’s apple juice.”

“Both a fruit,” John replied with a shrug, letting Roger’s arse go to open up the bottle. He sloshed a random amount into the fruit bowl turned Bloody Mary receptacle.

“Thar’s not how it _works_,” Brian insisted, looking two seconds from falling onto the floor. New parents and any time after 8pm did not mix particularly well, they were discovering. Also, perhaps, the limitless supply of booze they had been plying him with for a good five hours or so now.

Roger ignored him, curling even further into John as he attempted to mix in the apple juice. He blinked slowly at him which, generally, meant one of three things:

  * He needed his glasses
  * He was tired
  * He was drunk as all hell and trying to be seductive

He licked his lips.)

“Well, you can’t go anywhere,” Freddie informed him snottily. “They’re sending another one in in a minute.”

As if waiting to be acknowledged, the door banged open.

Roger, in his haste to move from where he was almost sat on John’s lap, toppled over the back of the sofa. John, his fingers still held around his ankle, jerked halfway over as well.

“I don’t even fucking wanna know,” Crystal said from the doorway, hands on hips like an overbearing mother as he glared at them, unimpressed.

Roger scrambled up to his feet, smoothing an absent hand over John’s head as he did so. John shot him a reassuring look. He was fine.

He was, however, also definitely going to milk this for a massage later. He wasn’t an idiot, opportunities like this had to be seized.

“You scared the shit outta me!” Roger bitched at Crystal, shoving his shades up into his hair to match his glare with his own. He squinted over at him for a second or two before giving in and yanking them back down onto his nose so that he could actually see.

“I opened a door.”

“You fuckin’ threw it open like a dick!”

“I don’t know what you’re doing with Deaky’s dick, Taylor, but that ain’t what you’re meant t—”

John coughed.

Crystal glanced over at him, a somewhat apologetic look gracing his face: “Sorry, mate. You might be into that kind of thing.”

“What, pray tell,” Freddie asked eagerly, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his thighs. “Is ‘that kind of thing’?”

“I dunno,” Crystal said with a shrug. “Some weird gay shit.”

Freddie cackled, falling back against Brian again who shook his head resignedly.

“Yeah, Crystal,” John replied drolly, sighing as Roger returned his dirty shoes to his pants. “I think we can safely say we’re into _weird gay shit_.”

“Yeah, dickhead,” Roger added, flipping him the bird.

“Cock,” Crystal shot back, flipping him both.

“No darling,” Freddie interjected slyly. “He just _likes _it.”

“Ugh,” groaned Brian, shoving Freddie off of him once more. “I’m gonna go… be somewhere else.”

He clambered to his feet with all the grace of goose dropped upside down from a great height, and clapped Crystal on the shoulder as he went to leave the room.

“Next interviewer’s ready for you,” Crystal told him just as he stepped out of the door.

Brian stopped, his shoulders fell.

John hid his grin in the rough material of Roger’s denim clad thigh.

“Sit your arse back down beanpole,” Crystal continued, spinning Brian back around with a hand clasped around his elbow. “You got two more hours of this shit.”

“Can we do one-on-one’s?” Brian asked hopefully as Crystal steered him back to the sofa. He deposited him none too carefully.

Brian bounced on the cushion despondently.

“I’ll ask Miami.”

“Really?”

“Sure.”

Crystal stood there, unmoving.

“Well?” Brian prompted impatiently, glaring up at him through his fringe.

“Miami said no.”

“Fuck you.”

* * *

John chucked the last of the decorative pillows to the floor and climbed onto the bed. It was a horribly ostentatious monstrosity of a thing that Roger had bought without telling him. John wasn’t sure _why _they needed a king size bed — which, by the way, was nearly impossible to buy bedsheets for. The lady in Debenhams had looked more than flustered as he’d politely informed her that he already owned the single set she presented to him proudly, and was hoping for something a little less sequined if possible — but Roger had insisted that they deserved it.

Given Roger’s habit of falling asleep on top of John, leaving about three quarters of the bed empty, John was of the opinion that they deserved someone who could snatch the cheque book out of Roger’s hand on occasion and smack him over the head with it.

Unfortunately Crystal had been on vacation at the time.

He laid back against the headboard and looked over to where Roger, in the ensuite, was scrutinising himself in the mirror. Roger leaned in further and prodded at his neck, twisting his head this way and that.

“You’re very pretty,” John called, crossing his legs. “Please come to bed.”

Roger glared back at him through the mirror before turning to his side and inspecting his torso, flattening his sleep shirt over his tummy, “I’ve gained weight. I used to be skinnier than this.”

John rolled his eyes, “That tends to happen when you’re not twenty four anymore.”

“You’re still…” Roger trailed off with a huff, coming to stand at the foot of their bed with his hands on his hips. John tried not to smile at the picture he made.

“I’m still?” John prompted, an eyebrow ticking up.

Roger flapped his hands at him, a slight flush making its way across the bridge of his nose as he glowered. “You’re still _you, _aren’t you?” he sounded genuinely frustrated which had John pushing himself up further. “Sexy John Deacon with the white hot dancing moves and the arse I could bounce a fucking penny off of,” he ground out. “And I’m…”

“You’re what?”

“Fuckin’ _middle aged _apparently!” Roger exclaimed, his pitch climbing as it tended to when he rose his voice. “Past my goddamn sell by date, being put out to bloody pasture!”

“Hey,” John said soothingly, spreading his legs and beckoning Roger onto the bed. Roger paused, shaking his wrists loose with agitation. “Come ‘ere,” John murmured. Roger sighed before crawling up the bed to collapse against John’s chest, cradled in the V of his legs as John brough his hands in to sit on his hips.

John ducked a kiss to the side of his neck, stubble scratched at his lips as he pressed them against the red mark that lingered where Roger had been prodding moment before.

“If you’re middle aged, Freddie’s ready to be put in a nursing home,” he told him, breathing in the scent of Roger’s hair as it tickled his nose.

Roger huffed out something that was almost a laugh, but the tension in his shoulders bled out and he relaxed against him properly so John counted it as a win.

“I’m _old_,” Roger whined, twisting to bury his head in John’s armpit like the heathen he was.

“You’re not old.”

“I am!”

“You’re not.”

“I am!”

“Okay, you are.”

“Fuck you!” Roger swore, scrambling out of his grasp to kneel at the opposite end of the bed with a scowl.

“You’re old and I _still _want to fuck you,” John sighed, affecting an over the top frown. “You’re clearly irresistible, you’ve ruined me for other men.”

“Fuck you,” Roger repeated, trying unsuccesfully to fight the small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“I wouldn’t say no,” John said, letting his legs fall further open as he quirked an eyebrow in invitation.

Roger’s eyes followed the line of his body. John resisted the urge to fidget.

“I’m not in the mood,” he sighed, clambering back up to the top of the bed and climbing under the covers. He collapsed down onto his pillow with a huff and curled up on his side, facing away from John.

“You really _are_ getting old,” John teased. He leant over a lay a kiss against his shoulder blade, his sleep shirt — an aged, ratty thing that had belonged to John once upon a time and been washed until the cotton was softer and more delicate than silk — having fallen over his shoulder.

Roger flung his arm back, wrapping a hand around John’s wrist and pulling him in. John arranged himself easily, resigning himself to being used as a comfort blanket for the night.

“And fat,” Roger whined into his pillow.

“Can I get under the covers?”

“So you do think I’m fat!” Roger exclaimed, pushing away and sitting up. He glared down at him accusingly.

“I just want to get under the covers, Rog.”

“You didn’t say I wasn’t.”

“I really, honestly,” John said flatly, closing his eyes as he rolled onto his back. “Thought I wouldn’t have to have these sorts of conversations when I shacked up with a bloke.”

“I’m so old and fat that a bird with a name like fuckin’ _Rachelle_ wouldn’t fuck me, too busy asking about when I’m gonna settle down and draw up a pension fund or some such shite,” Roger moaned, pitching forward to hold his head in his hands. “_Rachelle_, John! Who the fuck goes about in this day and age with a name like that!”

“Do you want to fuck her?” John asked, disinterest colouring his voice. He kept his eyes closed. Who knew? He might be allowed to go to sleep at some point.

“That’s not the point!”

“Then why does it matter if she would fuck you?”

“I was a _sex symbol_,” Roger hissed, slapping at him when he failed to look at him. “And now I’m just… that old guy who should have retired back when the going was good!”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

Silence.

With a great amount of trepidation John opened one eye to peer up at Roger who was looking down at him, stone faced.

“I’m sleeping on the edge of the bed tonight,” Roger told him waspishly.

John thought it was fucking stupid that their bed was big enough that that was their version of sleeping in another bed or on the sofa. Now, however, was probably not the time to bring that up.

“Rog,” he protested feebly.

“You can get under the covers now, if you’d like,” Roger said coldly, turning to scooch to the edge of the bed. It took him a little while, and halfway there he had to turn to snatch his pillow from where it lay next to John.

“I still want to fuck you?” John tried weakly. “No matter how old or f—” he cut himself off with a wince. That had sounded better, more romantic, in his head. Out loud it… did not sound romantic at all.

Roger didn’t answer him.

John sighed and pushed the covers down so that he could slip underneath. He could deal with this in the morning when Roger had had time to calm down, maybe make a joke about his arse not looking big in his trousers or something. It would be fine.

He settled in, turning over to sprawl on his tummy.

And then Roger yanked the duvet across the bed, leaving him shivering in the centre.

Maybe no joke in the morning, then.

**Author's Note:**

> i cant help myself what can i say 
> 
> largely unbeta'd bc i like to give caro little gifts that she doesn't have to work for occassionally
> 
> i really, really appreciate comments and love talking to y'all
> 
> (and u can find me on tumblr @sarinataylor)


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